135. On the nature of the offence, the Court notes the Applicant’s averment that
the Respondent State did not prove how the offence in his case was of such
a seriousness and gravity that warranted the mandatory imposition of the
death penalty. The Applicant suggests that the requirement of
“seriousness” is not met since the death sentence was subsequently
commuted into life imprisonment.
136. The Court takes note of Article 6(2) of the ICCPR, which provides that “In
countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death
may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the
law in force a the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to
the provisions of the present Covenant and to the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide …”.
137. In the case of Ghati Mwita v. United Republic of Tanzania, this Court held
that the death penalty should exceptionally “be reserved only for the most
heinous of offences committed in seriously aggravating circumstances”.54
138. The Court further takes note of international human rights case-law on the
seriousness and gravity of an offence that warrants the imposition of the
mandatory death penalty. For example, the Inter-American Court of Human
Rights (IACHR) has held that intentional and illicit deprivation of another’s
life can and must be recognized and addressed under various factors that
correspond with the wide range of seriousness of the surrounding facts,
taking into account the different facets that can come into play such as a
special relationship between the offender and the victim, motives for the
behaviour, the circumstances under which the crime is committed and the
means employed by the offender. The IACHR held that the approach allows
for a graduated assessment of the seriousness of the offence, so that it will
bear an appropriate relation to the graduated levels of gravity of the
applicable punishment.55
54
Mwita v. Tanzania (judgment), supra, § 66.
Boyce et al. v. Barbados, Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations, and Costs, Judgment of 20
November 2007. Series C No. 169, paras. 46-63 and Hilaire, Constantine, and Benjamin et al. v.
55
38